On backyard boars and ewok rabbits

This weekend, despite all common sense and the previous ten thousand commitments of job(s), garden, and critters, we gained 5 more breathing beings to whatever our ever-running critter tally is. Add 2 temporary ducks, 2 permanent (’til death do us part?) rabbits, and a wild boar to the list to give us this…

We also (re)made the “Farms” in Gnarly Farms plural as of this weekend. It was originally just a play on words since Nate and Charlei is “Gnarly,” but now that a friend is “hosting” Gyro the backyard boar in their backyard, we are actually a multi-location gig. We were plural when Wendy the goat was around, but that went south far faster than intended.

Gyro is a Christmas ham. A wild Christmas ham, but nevertheless, he will not be our buddy ol’ pal for too terribly long. Hubs is reading his newly gotten Christmas present (it seems all the presents will be required or used early this year and we will just have stockings on the day of), Whole Beast Butchery which is an excellent visual aid walking you through the butchering of beef, lamb, and pork. The book was quite on sale and looked to be exactly what he wanted – something thorough and visually helpful. The majority of butchering instructions that weren’t videos (and even some of those) seemed to just skip masses of important steps of information.

So, working on the largest animal butchery to be done under the Gnarly Farms heading and picking up/bringing home slop for the pig every other day – either from the work kitchen, Nate’s work kitchen, or the farmer’s market trash bins down the street. Gyro really likes watermelon, avocado, broccoli, and rabbit carcass. Go figure.

Someone asked us how much acreage we had when they saw that we acquired a boar to the mix. I guffawed when I replied. We keep our madness on .13 acres. Our animals are shuffled a lot because they require the most space and we frequently realize we have too many, we eat some, we give some away, we gain some more, but the whole tenth of an acre is constantly in the process of becoming totally engulfed in edibles and fuzzies.

The rabbits.
So, did you hear that I’m getting knitting needles for Christmas?
Did you know that I haven’t the foggiest how to actually utilize them yet?
Would it surprise you to learn that I jumped immediately at the opportunity to get angora rabbits from the auction, despite having no experience knitting, let alone harvesting my own wool?
Probably not.
That’s how I roll…er, spin, or whatever.

So, meet Charlemagne (white/black) and Wicket (gold/brown)

I feel like after you have looked upon their awesomeness, I can say nothing better than they can with their fluff.